Category: poetry

I value freedom most.
I wander
in both eyes and body
always collecting
but devoted to the last,
even fixated on the last,
even clutching the last
but also loose with most
acquaintances stressing
compromise, meaning
yielding to my rule
and enjoying breaks,
enjoying reaching,
enjoying screaming.

favoring opportunity over floor,
I become an opportunist.
favoring power over doormat,
I become a tyrant.
I value the sky and
currents more than houses.
 the ephemeral in
our lives while also walking
three inches higher than I am,
on tiptoe,
touching things,
making threats in the air
when angered and
you say I am

 for-mi-da-ble
and slow like that.
a bit virulent
is how you say it and
before we seek the advantageousness
of everything, it’s Friday
 and we are
 processing hard truths.
the way silence hits
and my hand opening,
 the spontaneity
of losing things.
tell me,
where do you keep your pocketknife?

 life is rushing and swamps
with its shades of
blue; azure
  (you name things)
sky, or cobalt fluid
or nightmare
like a wall of nail polish
you’re reading every
dressed up inch of you.
your rehearsed malignance.
your wry contribution
with your cocked smile
to hide your jealous
sulk.

the moon moves
from womb to waste
to task those unsewn wounds
 and you embrace things now
with reticence
but you’re open to the epitaph
scrawled across the rock hard
eyelid
       temperance
(that means patience)
my Venus in Leo
is running.
you made him carve something else
across  your eyes
that night on Jupiter:
          I remember everything.

but you didn’t want to be
so right and you didn’t really
ask
 for things:
you just opened a door
and walked in.
you made it clear
as you rummaged through
 the closet smelling him,
you are always only someone’s
secret. you are
unconditional when furtive
but otherwise,
rigid and passing
like a northern mist.

that means when kept.
when kept,
you’re just a blur,
vanishing,
just a sprint.

“venus in 12th house”

1

at least I give you transparency.

even when I’m moping,
I’m dancing
in songs of satin,
rippling with sob
and shimmering
deep    bright,
stretched for miles
like the sky and with the
same opacity.
I am combusting
publicly, usually:
a flood of recourse and
you are
drowning,

immersed
in capillaries bursting with
crisis
and then immediate clarity.
my hands let go of the
flood I’m cradling.
you watch me move
like a snake across your
ceiling draped in shifting
constellations
you have no choice but to
memorize and I’m wearing
the crescent as a crown and
your ears like a gown
and full of crypted
warnings.    me,
I’m a dream

cat
stalking rabbits
in the garden, or
waiting for the night
by the river for the
muskrat, leashed a black
gator to my belt for extra
guard, and then
later on your doormat
pushing the heads of mice
all around.
each night I go to God and ask
for favor.
I hand them back their most
prized possession as the only
way to get it:
a page,

one line;
one at a time
wrapped in
flakes of
shrimp like little treats.
my barbarity, I desperately
want to play psychopath
and you told me you were
starving for affection.
you also told me
I am the coldest
woman you’ve ever
met; catching your
goldfish, frying them up,
using your
own tank like
that. when they said I get one
favor, I asked for dreams.
I always ask for dreams.
not mine, I make clear.
let me walk through walls.

let me see.

“the aquarium”

0

sometimes I do ceremony.

I stick only to a daily morning
ritual and then the day falls apart.
 try to strengthen some resolve
 without consumption.
I feed the cats, clean their
litter box, then stretch
and write my dreams down.
then I walk the neighborhood
to soak up sun letting
hours devolve like time
has no meaning at all.

sometimes I just
 let things pass
like cravings or
weather.
I don’t need to ingest
everything I think but
my stomach growls and
my jaw clicks and I
begin to devour hours
well into the night.
like time has no meaning.
sometimes I do and say
nothing at all to
anyone for days.
we do that for others;
carry our grief quietly.
bury things deep
within ourselves.

but I feel the root rot and darken
without altar, water
or speech.
you walk in and
I’m here now
growing into a black stem.
you walk in and look
right at me
 and I don’t know
 where to begin.
but I found the
aperture.
you walk in and
look right at me and
my shiny white teeth
forge a new smile.

I begin to grow,
unfurl, hum
softly.

 

“datura moon”

0

you were given a choice.
you chose this road
first, then the
present.
become an alcoholic to
find a higher power.
meditate occasionally

to see how well it suits you.
fill the emptiness with Oreos,
coffee,
a smoking habit you detest
but gives your fingers something to
do when you’re speaking anxiously
in public,
when the caffeine is rearranging your
tongue into metaphors and you
need a moment of pause,
clarifying to the audience
with a descriptor you
previously forgot
and the story: winding,
inexplicably always
out of order.

run a 5K every three weeks
to give yourself a mission:
get back in shape,
hone your vision of
yourself.
bathe everyday.
tell the cat you love her
and pet her for an extra few minutes
before you walk for hours
to lose those new found vowels
completely.
pluck out your dead ends
 hiding in a stealth spot.
begin a practice of voyeurism.
sit comfortably and
file your nails into sharp points.
lean into them.

write everything down.
start ordering your steak rare:
inhale the lost veal,
the lost zeal of an entire feedlot;
the scent of plasma and cud.
devour a a squealing colony
without remorse.
      give cannibalism a chance.
you’re talking to yourself in public again.
the looks from the other patrons
don’t bother you.
you remember them with skinned knees on
bathroom tile;  your stomach in
velvet knots,
your obsessive purge.
you remember them peering at you
in courtrooms,
you remember them in handcuffs,
in shackles,
side eyes as you make a scene
 at the open bar, or get someone’s date to
carry it all:
               vodka soda,
          you lick his ear
             like your boyfriend isn’t even there.
it’s not the groom you want
or ceremony you despise,
it’s the bride.
the way you’ve stolen and
groveled afterwards.
 the way they held
onto those wrongs and their
condescending pats on the back
withdrawn.
how you’ve managed to
survive it all with gratitude,
without much impact,
you’ve suddenly risen
 to their ranks.

get your wisdom teeth removed
and then
cut them into daggers.
check out Home Depot,
ask for “industrial size”
ignore all the
 are you ok ?
you’re muttering again.
read the directions.
this stuff is toxic.
don’t get it on your eyelids.
press the bone back into your sockets,
flick the canines,
gotta be solid.
smile:
you’re still celibate.
you’re still hungry;
avaricious,

less slovenly from
all the exercise,
less addled than before
and armored like the night.
go back to the diner.
lick your plate.
click your tongue.
you showed them how
 starvation’s done.
you showed them how to roam.
you put your money where your
mouth is glued into
 your gums.
ring the alarm.

your mouth is lined with
homemade knives, and you’re
wafting noxious with each
breath    you begin to teach
them how to
move again.
you begin to chew more
loudly.
               Miss?
now that your dysphagia’s
done, you’re gonna smile
wide.
show them your veneers,
Ms. Salt and tell them
what you want.
I want it now.

“Veruca Salt”

0

I remind you over text
and apropos NOTHING
you make sure to emphasize
to someone that my style is
abruptly
and in all caps
that I enjoy the slam of
doors, interjections,
a hand tight around my forearm
 and learning the local
culture before intercepting about
the fine print of the law,
 how to skirt
a shadow, what a savior
secret arsenals
I present the trunk machete,
then the painted switch blade.
 I mean no harm
simply seething as I walk about
tracing panes, cracks in
paint and you hold me anyway
and in a way that I oblige;
loosely.

if I’m anything stasis
it’s anxious so
I at some point,
I have to be blindfolded,
only feeling
the way the soil holds the bones
of those we’ve learned to mourn
in private:
eternally and quiet
with an airy tightness and security
like the rosary barbs the
knuckles when it’s altar
or when its storm and I’m all fist.
the way the heavens hold the pious,
the mob holds the riot,
or the torch of arrival and
the way the ocean holds all that
falls below that deep blue
surge of sea.
a gentle immensity
lifts me in my
fits and that’s the way you
see me still;
intense and poignant,
pointed in her comments
but rather distressed about it
all so generally forgiven
for her onslaught.

 

squall hits and I
 drag you under to show
what made me.
you’re surprised by my
physicality and stature,
my apt command
of rooms
 so far
only seeing me flit
and not sticking around
to see me pull out
the skewer and demonstrating
all the ways in which a weapon
works.
and in front of
everyone like I feel most
comfortable in combat,
agitating and leading
 regimes before.
like I’ve never once
had an apprehensive
 thought.
and tall.

 

“furor”

0

this is fresh.
the way I put on blush
and got my bangs cut,
properly at a place just
to show up once,
just to take my scarf back
and without a hug.


like the last word
someone said
          I was hoping we could talk about this
or me finishing packing up
anything belonging to my
ex; an entire bookshelf he left
which leads me to a shoebox
to stuff the card my new
ex-thing sent.

find old photographs
of myself unsure in blue hoodie
set to the mountains
at sunset like I couldn’t
imagine not being there.
it was such a casual stance
to permanence I carried.
the last time I look at a place.
the impassable space between
 states, abysmal and
the plane ride to my
brother’s coma.
it all comes back.
this is fresh.


this is the last time I’ve ever
seen or heard from someone.
my intrepid cool affect
pushing edges further back
to margin;
my rehearsed gait.
the way I asked how are you
three times with a nervous gesture,
without listening or waiting
for response and then
a sudden turn away.

I spent all my time at the beach
as a child
watching waves take things away.
I’d throw sticks in there,
seaweed, sometimes bottle caps.
draw lines in the sand with my toes.
throw hermit crabs back.
the day the sky was black
 and cut with
lightning, swollen
with compulsion,
a tropical storm touched the
ocean and on instinct,
 it swallowed itself.
I was there at the edge.
watching waves curl up to
my chest and
my aunt screamed,
came to grab me as I touched the
shore with my hands and
carried me up to the house.
Sarah, why did you do that?
the whole way up,
I was crying, screaming
bout a flip flop
drifting in the current,
begging her to go back.
I remember it to this day.
it had white soles and  yellow and vinyl
ribbon tied into a bow
at the toe.
I was trying to go back
into the water to get it.
you can’t tell anything
about a statue
except it’s resting form:
cool

but if you ever saw the contents of
my purse: the twisted straws,
the clutter, lists of
things to get or hold,
the collections,
you would see
 that peevish child
taunting the ocean’s
grip and dashing,
longing for her
endless swaddle,
but also longing for
everything that ever
existed too.

 invincible in
execution only if
carried everywhere.
people don’t change,
I think, and having second thoughts
throw the dinosaur
you mailed me away.

the birthday card he gave me.
the set of text exchanges.
people don’t change.
I empty the bin,
make space for lipstick.

0

the skulk,
scent,
need for slow chase.
salivation with a .
wide open stance,
arms spread,
lips like decanter,
trickling:
it is with love that I do this.
oh, you always say that.

*snaps* to wake
up.   tips a holy red,
I begin to grow inches and
 let my naturally long nails
trail the arms of strange
wool peacoats on my way to
the El or nowhere.
just circling Girard for fun.

It’s the beginning of December.
and I made rent.
I sort of grimace as
I sway the town, head to
toe in unbought clothes,
heeled boots,
hips flexed and
recently fucked.

let my hand hit the elbow
of an unsuspecting man,
unfucked, soon to
be turning around and
catching a flash of my
back, purple mock wool
and  hear the clack
of my shoes walk
away.
it is with love
they say.

“the honey trap”

0

I’m obsessed with transition.
the form it takes
in movement and
thrown against a wall;
stalled in its pounce;
sudden landing
 without intent.
the motion to freeze,
liquefy.
reabsorbed and to
precipitate or the moment
before, to reform.

and after all that patience
and miles of crouch
through the city,
admiring the syringe tops
and mortar and filling
the jacket lining
with bills and your ardor
growing big and bright
and pulling things towards you
like the moon
to be suddenly seized
by your habits again.

 

when I walked into the room
I saw you again.
you offered to show me upstairs
right away, ushering me with
your hand on my lower back
and I heard your voice
behind me, concerned:
   watch your step

it’s just one breath,
that’s all it takes.

 

“the men” or “the loop”

0

I just have to make rent.

 

this is how thoughts start
and then ten years go by
and you’re still spiraling
like you hadn’t found the answer
but really I just
had to make rent.
that was my first priority
and I think I may be a masochist
which could wait just
keep everything in some sort of order.
focus on the task.
the one thought as I open
the door to the mid-August heat,
89 degrees which is nothing compared to
the south that can swallow you whole
in one boiling breeze and I’m out of
my now near empty row home
that you cleaned almost all the way
out before you left
except the dirty armchair, old couch–
all the furniture found.
all the dishes donated.
everything I left come back,
everything kind of circuitous
like my anfractuous spine
 that stood straight once but
fractured under the weight
of this constant need to materialize
public ovation and actual groceries and
the ability to discern between a happy
thought and an actual hand to hold,
I become the reed reaching deep
but bent,
 sinuous,
cracked,
become the way the wind moves
when it’s surging.

i’m counting tokens in a
donated tank top and barely fitting
jean shorts, everything about me
awkward and also sort of heavy in
the impassable space between states
 I learned to love,
between beds I’ve been thrown on
and various seasons of us;
theorized or touched
whether it’s real or not,
irrelevant to the curve that’s forming
in my back as I hunch over the weight
of things I stuff in my bookbag
that I find on my walks out:
China set, forks, two new mini
skirts, pot holders neatly placed in
cardboard boxes on people’s
front porches and  I am,
crammed with charity,
stretched to my limit
and timorous.
I’m two miles to the El
with enough tokens to get me there
and back and enough money to pay
exactly
one phone bill,
one internet bill,
power and gas but we are still
working the rest out and
I feel drops forming at
the base of my
sweaty and salt-lined,
un-licked neck.
thatss what I miss most.
the way a man curls behind you.
the way his curtness catches you.
it’s just one breath.

you never ask about my mornings
or daydreams; just
twirl the edge of your Merit
 between your thumb
and pointer and
years of pleasurable
silence,    it’s just one breath
look at me with such
masked inconsequence,
cold front and
lick whatever sugar is stuck to
my teeth,
go back to your lighter.
go back to your preoccupations.
go back to your opinion
that my anarchy is the danger of the
couple, not your ability
to wrap your fist around a throat
without a safety word.

it’s rent I have to worry about.

I put my headphones in.
began to spin the happy thought
into years; of us.
your brusqueness
   it’s just one breath
syncopated with whatever song
I assign it like I walked
into a film set, replay a scene
of you coming back and
behind me, your mouth
hot with acrimony.
your hands rough in
both touch from the ungloved carpentry,
spackled with white paint
 and the way
you take my waist.
I hum out loud.
the loop is what I have to
worry about.
the way you press your teeth
to me.
        it’s just one breath.

“the men”

1

in a constant state of transition
like wind,
a severity when charged
or something that merely
carries.

 how I can be a mechanism
not always fit for ground.
when standing,
an unbearable pressure.
more reasonable in
flight, even in
vehemence, I begin.

I begin to weigh the scales:
what’s the probability
that illusion grows legs
or that imagination is laden
with foresight?
you see if I don’t begin to
think this way, I will
cross the bridge
and when my foot hits the
concrete, I want to
leap, arms spread.
it’s not about anyone coming
back. and to end the poem
graciously, i want you to 

feel the pins sticking out
of your eyes before you
taste the thumbtacks.
before you eat the cupcake,
I want you to sniff
the befouled wine.
before you get to
her house, I want
you to see the frog
and I want you to
remember to
(leap before you look)
pluck the nightshade.

consider me a drifting bubble;
felt in passing,
 kind of gazed at,
 sometimes solidifying
on an open palm
but mostly just
rising.
a pressure.
a violent
rotating
column and leaving
origami pigeons
 full of acrimony
everywhere like I just
drip that.

“Saturn in Scorpio”

0

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